Game tickets such as lottery tickets commonly include a substrate on which is printed game data in a game play area which is then covered by a coating of a scratch-off material to allow the player to reveal the game data or selected parts of the game data to play the game. An important aspect of such tickets is that of providing an attractive and aesthetic appearance which acts to attract the customer to purchase. Typically such tickets have an overprint layer applied onto the scratch-off coating so as to identify the areas to be scratched and to provide an attractive appearance, bearing in mind that the majority of the area of the front of the ticket is taken up by the game area. While the material printed is relative simple in most cases, attempts have been made to make the ticket more attractive by applying more complex images onto the game area.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,569,512 (Brawner, Jon M) assigned to Dittler Brothers and entitled Card with integrated overprinting is disclosed lottery tickets which utilize continuous overprint inks that mask the boundaries between their “secure” and “unsecure” portions to inhibit unscrupulous players from successfully tampering with them. The method uses reformulated overprint inks to permit a single set to be applied to both portions of a card. The method is stated to have the advantages that more vibrant and aesthetically pleasing graphics may be displayed as well while utilizing fewer printing stations during the printing process.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,704,647 (Desbiens, Jean-Pierre) assigned to BABN Technologies Corporation and entitled Multi-color overprinting of scratch-off lottery tickets there is disclosed a method of producing a lottery ticket and lottery tickets produced thereby wherein an overprinting layer is provided over a scratch-off layer, the overprinting layer comprising an image obtained from a design in which the colors in the design have been separated into half tone images of each color and are superimposed on the scratch-off layer of the lottery ticket.
Lottery tickets are printed at high speed using printing rollers for the repeated sections of the tickets such as the basic graphics, the security and base layers, the covering layers of varnish and the like, the scratch-off coating and the overprint layer. The game data are printed on the ticket generally using an ink jet printer controlled by a computer to apply the different game data for each of the tickets. The game data generally also includes an identifying bar code (or machine readable code) which again is unique to the ticket concerned. The game data are generally relatively simple often being merely numbers or letters which can be readily printed by the ink jet printer. Thus the overprint images are printed using the conventional printing press which includes a printing roller for each of the different colors. The printing roller system is used because it provides the high speeds necessary for commercial production of such tickets and because it applies inks which can be selected to ensure proper coverage over the underlying material regardless of its characteristics.
In Published US application 2008/0197621 (Grotkowski) published Aug. 21, 2008 and assigned to the present Assignee, which corresponds to Canadian application 2607766 published Jun. 19, 2008 is disclosed a row of lottery tickets of the above general type in which a multi-color digital image for each ticket is printed onto the scratch-off layer using a variable image printing system. At least part of the scratch-off layer can be left free from printed overlay graphics and the multi-color digital image can be printed subsequently at a different location from the ticket manufacturing location. The graphics can indicate different values for different ones of the tickets. The tickets in the row can be of different lengths and the graphics can be different for different length ones of the tickets.
In Published US application 2010/0253063 (Skogster) published Oct. 7, 2010 and assigned to Black and White Paper Mfg AB, which corresponds to PCT published 2009/062297 published May 22, 2009 is disclosed a scratch-off instant game card of the above general type having a secure area for the game data with the game data printed as full colour variable images printed on the secure area. The arrangement disclosed provides one pass printing where the graphics on the ticket surrounding the secure area and the game data on the secure area are printed simultaneously. The application points out that this provides advantages in regard to the appearance of the ticket in that the game data is now a full color image.
Canadian application 2666784 (Grotkowski) published Dec. 2, 2009 discloses a similar arrangement where the game data elements are printed in a game area with a four color design.
Printing techniques are disclosed in prior US patents of the present assignee, as follows:
U.S. Pat. No. 6,145,885 issued Nov. 14, 2000;
U.S. Pat. No. 6,234,477 issued May 22, 2001; and
U.S. Pat. No. 6,347,794 issued Feb. 19, 2002.
The disclosures of each of the above documents is hereby incorporated herein by reference in as much as they disclose printing techniques and lottery ticket constructions that may be incorporated or used herein.
Traditionally instant tickets are manufactured in a segmented (roll to roll) process which involves multiple steps, run independent of each other. The steps are as follows
Base graphics including the game information;
Lilypad(s) defining the game play area;
Variable game data;
Protective/release coatings, scratchoff layer and overprint layer.
More recently production is carried out in an in-line environment in which all of the above steps are performed in a single pass through one press, although the variable game data is applied separately from the graphical portions of the ticket including the game information.
Costs are often incurred to re-manufacture product because of errors which occurred and were not noticed during the production process. The incidences can be very low but the costs are high because, even if a very small percentage of tickets in a production run are non-conforming but not identified during production are released into the marketplace, the customer has the ability to reject the entire game and demand it be reproduced.
One such example is a game entitled Heads or Tails. In the segmented manufacture of this product, base graphics consist of a picture of a coin's head or tail and are printed on an offset press. The variable imaged data consists of a head or tail and are printed on an ink jet imager. In this case the variable data is a black image of a coin which is shown as being either a head or a tail. To win, the image on the coin in the game area has to match the image of the coin in the graphic area. A loser reveals a mismatch. The consequences are significant if the images in the game data area are not synchronized properly. There is a financial loss as well as loss of integrity in the marketplace.
Existing imaging technology used in the lottery industry has been based on the use of multiple imaging heads. Each imaging head is designed to support 1 colour (typically black) which covers a portion of the web. Each head is approximately 4″ wide and it requires 5 heads to image a 20″ wide web. To add a single colour, other than black, in each row of tickets requires an additional 5 heads. Alternatively some of the black heads could be drained and converted to red however this reduces the run width to 2 rows of tickets instead of 5. This is a very expensive alternative and still limits the process to a single additional colour. A further risk is created when trying to run 2 colours (black and one other) on a single ticket as these must be applied in separate printing units.
Multiple checks, production and post-production, manual and machine-based have been developed to enable us to check for the synchronization of the data but the risk remains of an out of sync situation occurring as these checks are subject to errors.